It hasn't been too long a time ago when it was a frustrating business trying to find a good recording of Claudio Monteverdi's signature masterwork Vespro della Beata Vergene, arguably the most ambitious entrance examination ever fulfilled in the history of music. In the old days of LPs, one in search of some measure of transparency in this work would run up against performances recorded in cavernous cathedrals with wobbly sounding singers, inarticulate and disinterested sounding continuo realizations, and leaden, dead-in ...
Read More
It hasn't been too long a time ago when it was a frustrating business trying to find a good recording of Claudio Monteverdi's signature masterwork Vespro della Beata Vergene, arguably the most ambitious entrance examination ever fulfilled in the history of music. In the old days of LPs, one in search of some measure of transparency in this work would run up against performances recorded in cavernous cathedrals with wobbly sounding singers, inarticulate and disinterested sounding continuo realizations, and leaden, dead-in-the-water tempi employed. On the other hand, the situation lately has become an embarrassment of riches, and the notion of "where to begin" becomes a daunting proposition indeed. One who really loves the Vespro della Beata Vergene, or "1610 Vespers" as they are called for short, won't mind owning more than one recording of the work so long as it's a good one, so evaluating each new version becomes a matter of how it stacks up against previous, and positively evaluated, recorded...
Read Less
Add this copy of Monteverdi: Vespers to cart. $48.86, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2006 by HYPERION.